Jelly Beans
by Shaneener
Summary: She did it. [Chapter 3 now uploaded: Sorry for the delay!]
1. Out There

_A/N: Angstangstangst. _

_Rating: K+ (Everything I've done so far is K+.)_

_Summary: No. You don't deserve one._

"Jelly Beans"

She'd done it. She'd put herself out there and now this. She had been so sure.

She could feel her body burn, though it was probably ten degrees outside. Whether she was warm from embarrassment of passion, she didn't know. Her lips still buzzed from where they had met his. Her hands felt numb from where they had ran through his hair.

"Pam..."

Pamela didn't move. She couldn't. She couldn't look into his face and see his eyes. Those big brown eyes that made her heart melt... She felt her ears turn even warmer than before.

"I... I had no idea. I thought things were okay between us..."

They had been before she ruined it. She had thought... God, what had she thought? Nothing, probably. She had let herself become to comfortable, too 'spur-of-the-moment'. Well, look what happened.

"I'm so sorry."

Pam nodded silently as he apologized for not feeling the same way. Like he could control it. It wasn't his fault. It was hers. It was all her fault.

"I wish...God Pam, I wish I still could feel the same. I did. Two years ago. I just..."

He had moved on. Why hadn't she? Did she think that he had broken up with his girlfriend for her? No, never. Why would he? It occurred to Pam suddenly that he probably had someone waiting for him right now. He would go to bed with a warm body next to him, while Pam would fall asleep watching a rerun of "Friends".

Pam finally noticed the silence and looked up. He was still standing there awkwardly, no doubt wanting to climb into his Toyota and speed away. She tried her best to smile, ease his pain. He shouldn't suffer. It was her fault.

He seemed to relax a tiny bit at her fake smile, but he still didn't move. Only his right hand clenched and unclenched.

"Well, uh, I have to go..."

Pam nodded quickly, her eyes falling back to her snow-covered boots. She heard the snow crunch as he walked to his car. She heard the door open and the ignition start, but didn't hear him backing out.

She realized that he was probably waiting for her to do something. Anything. An extremely random thought popped into Pam's head: He was wasting gas.

Not wanting to pollute the environment, Pam walked back into the building. She faintly hear him drive away. When she was certain he was gone, Pam collapsed on a nearby chair and began to sob.

Why was she so stupid?! What was she thinking?! That he loved her? Liked her? Had any romantic feelings at all towards her? Just because she was stuck in the past didn't mean he was. Why had she kissed him?!

Pam wasn't sue how long she'd been crying. She only knew she'd been crying long enough for her throat to feel like it was filled with sand and her mascara to run all the way to her chin.

Pam grabbed a tissue from her pocket and did her best to get rid of he mascara. When the tissue was almost completely black, she stood up and walked to the elevator.

Twenty-four seconds later, she was on the third floor. With a deep breath, she opened the door to Dunder Mifflin Scranton and sat at her desk, happy no one else was there.

Ten minutes later, she placed her resignation letter on Michael's desk and walked out.

She looked around slowly, saying goodbye to the place. She had already packed everything.

Well, almost everything.

Gently, almost too gently, Pam placed her jar of jelly beans on Jim's desk.


	2. No

_A/N: Angstttttyyy. D Thanks for the wonderful reviews! Well, most of them… -cough -Maddie! -coughcough- _

_Rating: K+_

_Summary: Angst again. Oh, oh, and, by the way, I need some suggestions on how to end this. I have a rough idea, but I need a lot more ideas._

"Jelly Beans"

_No._

One single, solitary thought entered the salesman's head. _No._

It wasn't a constant, _Nonononono not me nooo!_ or a sad, mournful, _Noooooooooo!._ It was just a simple, one syllable word: _No._

"I found something from Pam this morning…"

Jim's whole body began feeling numb and the red jellybean that had been chewing on dropped onto his desk. It had started at his toes and had worked its way up. The only thing he could feel was his heart burning. Not in agony, but determination. She couldn't leave… That wasn't… Possible? It was possible. His heart slowed down.

"She cited personal reasons…"

Jim swore his heart stopped in that moment. She remembered her eyes the day before in the parking lot. They had been a brilliant color, shimmering with what Jim realized now were tears. And he had caused them. He had made her cry.

He could feel the world stopping.

Suddenly, Jim jumped up from his chair and sprinted to the door, blowing past Michael in mid-sentence and nearly running over Ryan. He couldn't wait for the elevator, so he took the stairs three at a time. Finally, he burst out of the building into the freezing afternoon. His body was full of adrenaline, which was lucky for him, considering he had left his coat on his chair.

Jim fumbled with the keys to his car. When he heard a click, he nearly ripped the door off of its hinges to get in. Soon, however, he was speeding out of the parking lot and onto the street.

Jim paid no attention to the song on the radio. He couldn't hear anything but the one word that had returned to his head: _No._

After running a red light, Jim stopped at the next intersection. _6758 Needle Street_, he thought, Pam's address replacing the word no. He had been to her apartment once before to drop off a package. He had left it at the door, too embarrassed to knock.

Jim took a sharp turn onto Corn Street and was honked at by a very angry soccer mom in a Honda Odyssey. Jim paid no attention to her.

_I can do this_, he thought as he drove past house after house, _I can make this right. I can apologize. We can talk. I know how I feel now. I feel—_

Jim's thoughts were abruptly cut off when his car collided with another.


	3. Cat Ears

_A/N: I am so, so, so sorry for the delay. It was unbelievably cruel of me to leave you hanging on that cliffhanger. I went over to my mother's house, and she's not as generous with my computer time as my father._

_I had an idea of how to do this chapter, but I typed about four paragraphs and realized this wasn't gonna work. The beginning is still the same, but the rest is different._

_Rating: K+_

_Summary: Slightly less angsty-angst… I might even throw in a joke. _

"Jelly Beans"

Jim's crash hit Pam hard.

No, literally.

_Life's a crazy thing_, Pam mused as she lay on her hospital bed, an IV stuck in her left wrist and her right leg covered in a white cast. Her head was bandaged, several places spotted with a deep red.

Pam had been coming home from the grocery store, four bags full of milk, cereal, frozen dinners, and Cheetos threatening to spill all over her backseat. She'd been pondering what she wanted for dinner that night (a tie between lasagna and macaroni) when she heard a loud crash and felt a searing pain in her leg.

"Excuse me," Pam said, her voice extremely hoarse, "can I get some water?"

The nurse looked up from her clipboard and gave Pam a curt nod before exiting the room.

With a sigh, Pam turned on the hospital's television. It only got local channels, but Pam didn't care. She needed a distraction from the pain in her leg.

Pam had never broken anything before. She'd sprained her wrist in fifth grade. She'd fallen down a rocky hill trying to catch up to the cool girls at camp. But that was it.

The nurse returned, a Dixie cup of lukewarm water in hand. Pam accepted it and took a sip, then asked, "Can I walk around a bit? I still need to practice using my crutches…"

The nurse nodded silently. Pam was getting the feeling the woman couldn't speak. She wondered if she still had a tongue.

A few moments later, Pam was gracelessly hobbling down the hall, holding her crutches in a vice grip. Her cast was big and bulky, and she kept tripping over it. She knew she was going to get some bruises later.

Suddenly, Pam caught sight of something she wasn't ready to see. There, in room 54A, was Jim Halpert, lying on a hospital bed with his arm in a splint and bandages covering random spots on his body. He was lounging around watching TV, his feet hanging off the too-small bed.

Pam wanted to run (or, rather, hobble) away, but was stopped dead in her tracks. She watched him shift to his side and look at her. He watched the spark of recognition in his brown eyes when he realized she was standing there.

"Hey," he said, waving his injured hand.

"Hey," Pam whispered quietly. Somehow, though, he managed to hear her.

Jim shifted awkwardly into a sitting position and motioned for her to sit down on the chair beside his bed. Without thinking, she did.

"So…" he started, searching her face for something. Pam didn't know what he was looking for, but she was pretty sure it wasn't there. His eyes fell to her leg and he grimaced. "Does it still hurt?"

"What?" Pam asked, looking down. "Oh the leg… Um, a bit. Not too much though." Why was this so awkward? Jim was her best friend! Or had been, before she screwed it up.

Jim nodded slightly, and then brought his eyes up to her face. Pam kept hers down, but said, "My head hurts more though. The ear of the cat figurine Angela gave me got lodged inside."

Jim laughed at that, but stopped abruptly. "Sorry," he said quickly, "That isn't funny."

Pam looked up at him. "Yeah, actually, it kind of is…" She felt a smile tug at her lips and grinned. Jim's smile quickly followed.

"I like dogs, personally," Jim said.

"You and Dwight have that in common."

"Along with our blatant dislike for orange jelly beans."

"Oh, yes, of course."

They both laughed at that. At first, it sounded awkward, forced, but after a moment, it felt… normal. Easy. Relaxed. Real.

Silence followed though, but not an awkward one. No, this one was quiet, contemplative, as if they were both trying to figure what was happening and where they stood. Pam was drawing a blank, and she knew Jim well enough to know he was, too.

"Guess what?" Pam burst out.

Jim, holding back a laugh, responded with, "What?"

"I'm pretty sure my nurse doesn't have a tongue."

Jim let out a laugh at that, and Pam quickly joined him.


End file.
